There’s a line in one of my favorite novels, Snow Crash, where the threat of the title is explained to the main character, and he can’t quite get his head around it.

“This Snow Crash thing—is it a virus, a drug, or a religion?”
Juanita shrugs. “What’s the difference?”

Shut the fuck up, it was less heavy-handed in 1992. Anyway, this pretty well sums up my feelings about a brand where, if I say its name, you don’t know if I’m talking about a television show or a restaurant. There’s a weird Marshall McLuhan/Videodrome quality to that idea that gives me a sour, orange feeling behind my eyes. You can’t eat reality television! I said.

I was wrong. There is no better way to describe this place than “trying to eat television.”